It is well known to use various biomarkers, such as measurement of blood pressure, or measurements of biological material such as proteins for helping the clinician in making a diagnosis. However, measurement of several proteins may be technically difficult or even impossible since bio-assays for measuring a particular biomarker may not even be available.
Thus, due to technical difficulties or economic considerations using several or expensive bio-assays, it is difficult or impractical to measure several biomarkers However, in order to obtain a reliable diagnosis it may be necessary to measure several biomarkers.
WO 2006/002240 discloses a method for constructing classifiers that distinguish between trait subgroups using molecular marker data from blood samples. The invention further encompasses the use of the classifiers and combinations of molecular markers identified by the classifiers in a wide variety of applications including: diagnosis; prognosis; prediction of disease, stage of disease or disease risk. The invention further provides a variety of selected molecular markers and a means to identify combinations of the selected molecular markers useful for diagnosing particular traits of interest.
Accordingly, WO 2006/002240 succeeds in identifying particular molecular markers that are useful for diagnosing. However, WO 2006/002240 does not succeed in simplifying the task of suggesting a diagnosis, since the requirement to measure all molecular markers for making a diagnosis may require different bio-assays, may be time consuming and may stress the patient.